The Ultimate Interview Guide: A guest blog post by Omnikron President Robin Borough

Intro:

If the name of our guest blogger sounds familiar, that’s because Robin is Rebecca’s mom! She also happens to be an expert in helping people land their dream jobs. Because Knit Marketing’s mission is all about creating job opportunities, we asked her to share her wisdom to our team and any other young person looking to ace an interview. We’ve already been blessed by her business savvy and advice and hope you will benefit too. Enjoy!

The Ultimate Interview Guide

You get one shot at a good interview… Here’s a surprisingly easy way to stand out amongst your competition:

I’ve coached thousands of high-qualified job applicants during my 30-year tenure of running recruiting companies and placing lots of smart people in great jobs. The job landscape, global economy, technology and workplace culture have changed significantly over the last thirty years. Nowadays, with immediate access to almost any information you could ever want, you’d think job candidates would be sufficiently prepared for their interviews. That’s what you’d think.

It’s baffles me every time prospective applicants come into my office, with brand new folios, fancy resumes and shiny shoes… everything looks good at the start, but when I ask my first interview question, “So… tell me, what do you know about my firm?,” at least 50% of these fine looking candidates have no clue what we do, or they give a weak answer that shows minimal preparation. Wow. [I usually find a way to politely end the interview within 15 minutes when this happens.]

Consequently, one of the easiest ways to ace your job interviews is to prepare. Research the company and the people you may meet. Scour the corporate website, look at employee profiles in LinkedIn, sign up for a free account at Owler, use GlassDoor and even just “Googling” and using Wikipedia will give you valuable info for your upcoming interviews. I recommend doing your homework 2-4 days in advance – definitely not while in the lobby waiting for your appointment!

Because this article is written for the loyal friends and fans of Knit Marketing, be sure to check out the prospective company’s social media sites: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. This will give you a great view of the company’s personality and brand following.

When preparing, here’s the type of information you should be looking for:

Organizational chart – learn the top executives names and study their backgrounds, prior companies and education. This tip is particularly funny to me because most people miss this step.

Mission of the company and also the mission of the division or department you’re applying to work for.

Products and services and how this company ranks compared to its competition.

Take a little broader view and gain some insight about the industry served by this company as well – is the industry growing, stagnate or shrinking?

Mission of the job you’re interviewing for.

Profiles of the people who will be interviewing you and also profiles of those who may hold similar jobs to the one you will be interviewing for.

If you can, purchase or try out the product or service before you interview

Research is an easy step that pays big dividends. It’s so easy, you may think, “That’s just common sense.” If that’s what you think, then you’ve got 50% of the equation. It does make a lot of sense, but, fortunately for you – it’s not that common!

Tell us about your interview experiences – either from an interviewee’s or an interviewer’s perspective. I know the team at Knit Marketing would love to hear from you and if you write something really witty – they may Tweet and Share your great advice!